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Sunday, 27 January 2013

Players are right to fear the Drow. AD&D
traditionally starts hard. You have a handful of hit points and have to scramble
for your wins. Then you hit mid level and a buffer of hit points protect you
from mistakes. The beasts of the monster manual fall before your might,
particularly creatures that are sacks of hit points with no powers. Things seem
easy. Which is why Gygax introduced Drow. Drow, like players, don’t play fair.
They cast spells, use poison, have magic resistance and allow the DM to indulge in mean underhanded tactics. The kicker is their sweet loot, like Drow
cloaks and adamantium chainmail, decay in the sunlight. The pay-off for battling
them isn’t always great. Drow were Gygax’s leveler, they make things tough
again.

Which is why I was a disappointed when the
group decided to avoid drow territory preferring to take their chances dragon hunting. The group love killing dragons and rightly so, they tend to be rich!

Things that happened last game were:

Milgos the mage thief, Betty the swordswoman,
Chuck the priest and Ratnik the barbaric tribesman ventured into the silent halls of the
Mountain Trolls. The signs of the Troll purge obvious to all. Great piles of
burnt bones lay where the heroes had stacked them in pyres and the walls remained
scarred from the assault of both magical fire and ice. Nothing was foolish
enough to assault the band in this place.

A Minotaur outpost was discovered with the
beasts seizing the initiative, charging into the narrow confines of the
tunnels to do battle. This made casting area effect spells a risky proposition.
Milgos fled and was head butted twice by great bull headed men who pursued.
Betty barely withstood the barrage of axe blows and Ratnik fell. Chuck kept
folk alive by channeling Dunethain’s power into healing spells. Soon Ratnik was
back in the fight, three Minotaurs were caught in a web and the tide
turned. The party had been horribly mauled by their first encounter and retreated
to the city of Khare to lick their wounds.

In Khare Chuck scrounged some healing scrolls from the curators of the library which served as Dunethain's temple.

The second venture saw Milgo’s scouting and
as soon as he heard the lowing of Minotaurs he let fly with a devastating
fireball into the darkness. The burning Minotaurs fled in panic, setting off a crossbow
trap. Those not killed by the trap had their throats slit.

The parties own dark elf assessed the trap
and determined it was of Drow manufacture. He retrieved a number of bolts from
the device then decided to leave what lay beyond the traps protection alone. As far as he knew the trap marked the beginning of Drow territory.

The group turned north as Milgos recalled a
tale of a dragon lairing in that direction. The northern tunnels where part of
an abandoned mine. Many of the tunnels looked dangerously unstable with one
collapsing before their eyes.

Shrieking fungus sounded the alarm in a
fungus covered chamber. Lizard like rooster creatures raced in to investigate. Chuck
hurled a mine cart into the chamber disrupting a patch of yellow mold at a
critical moment slaying two of the monsters.

Past the abandoned mines and fungus the
group found a snake temple. In a pillared hall a huge constrictor attacked them
and at one point swallowed Ratnik. The henchman was spared the indignity of
dying in a snake’s stomach as the party eviscerated the creature. Chuck
was so incensed at the snakes audacity for swallowing one of the Dunethain's favoured that he hacked off the head of the beast, Conan style!

An ominous pair of double doors was
discovered beyond which the party suspect lairs the dragon. The dragon they hunt had defeated the party very early on in their careers, though Ugh is the only
character to have survived that initial encounter. The band retreated to plan
their next move.

Tuesday, 15 January 2013

I ran an AD&D game on Google+ recently.
Part of running older games is recapturing the wonder and excitement I
experienced as a kid, nostalgia I guess. I had pondered creating a sandbox
setting for the game I’m running and figured that I should draw on the things
that inspired me when I was growing up. The major influences were Fighting
Fantasy and Lone Wolf books, games of Talisman, Warhammer 3e and countless
readings of D&D Red Box. Visually Gary Chalk and John Blanche were huge
influences on me. While I am reminiscing, Callum an old DM and friend, joined
the game calling in from NSW. Excellent!

Gary Chalk illustrated my childhood.

Callum had rolled up Chuck the dwarven
cleric/fighter and zealot of Dunethoin. Dunethoin is the god of secrets and
mysteries. Brendan brought Milgos and his henchwoman Betty. After a substantial
Google+ hic-up killed about an hour of game time we got underway and achieved the following:

·Chuck met Milgos in one of
Khare’s many taverns and immediately made all present aware of his zealous
unwavering faith. Milgos was not impressed by the dwarf's fanaticism. He had
recently taken up the title of 'Milgos the Glum' as he brooded on the loss of his
dark elf form.

·Chuck was looking to explore
the location of some cyclopean ruins that were held by a band of Slaang worshipping
marauders. Slaang is the chaotic god of malice.

·Upon arriving at the caves they
were questioned by a man concealed in the undergrowth who insisted he was a hermit and that the group had
to leave as there were “definitely no
cyclopean ruins here to explore, thank you very much.” After a drawn out conversation Chuck became suspicious and
peered into the cave. While the ‘hermit’ had stalled for time a band of
marauders had gathered at the caves entrance. Combat was swift thanks to a hold
person spell and some terrible rolls.

·Efforts to push the ‘held’
marauders off a cliff face were interrupted by the main marauder group led by a
Witch of Slaang. Once they were dispatched a marauder was spared and brow
beaten into forsaking his god Slaang and instead worshipping Dunethoin.

·Chuck’s new ‘ally’ spilled the
beans on the caves layout and features mentioning some tunnels that were too
small for the bulky marauders to explore. These tunnels would be ignored.

·The witch’s body turned to mist
and began to float away but was frozen solid by Milgos’ magic. The frozen chunks were then scooped into a bag of holding.

·A cave demon was found and
dispatched. Milgos’ displacer cloak gave him the confidence to enter melee.

·A giant stone head was discovered in
the cave demons lair. It was said to allow direct communication with the god Slaang
who would grant a wish to any who bested him in a contest of wits. Milgos was
torn but would have no truck with dark gods despite his desire to return to his
drow form. Chuck got out his chisel and defaced the head ruining it.

·Further exploration found a
survivor of a prior expedition, Mad Mord, who gave them some extra information
on the cyclopean ruins which the players didn’t really pick up on. Probably
because at this point we were rushing things.

Sorcery! The feared Cave Demon turns out to be a manticore.

The adventure I ran was a homebrew influenced
by the Sorcery! series of books, specifically the Shamutanti Hills, with an eye
to fine tune it into a one page dungeon entry. No adventure survives contact
with the players and despite my fatigue on the night I picked up on
a few things that didn’t really work:

·The adventure needed more detail
as the caves were overshadowed by combat. Callum thought they were moving
through a dungeon when they were moving through natural caves. This could also
be because the fighting started well before any exploration.

·More build up was required.
There was a big fight at the entrance and then some rushed and muddled exploring.

·Some other sort of opponent
beyond the marauders and the cave demon was required. Is there room in the
caves for another faction if I space things out?

·The puzzle, which led to the
portal concealing a cool encounter and substantial treasure, was either too well
hidden or simply not picked up on by the players. The primary goal seemed to be clear the dungeon of monsters first and if there's any play time left explore.

·I got the impression the
players weren’t impressed with re-skinned humanoids preferring to battle the
classic creatures. The players searched in vain for the spell book of a witch after she
was killed. They became disheartened and queried how she could cast spells. It’s hardly my job as a DM to explain that she was a re-skinned ogre-mage.

·The marauders were re-skinned
minotaur’s with a random mutation. Thanks to the random mutation roll one of
the marauders could psionically cast sleep. I think this met with raised
eyebrows that he cast a spell without a spell book and do it while wearing armour. This is probably a bit of
the old 3e fairness/monsters built like players mindset creeping in.

I’ll keep working on this adventure and the Sorcery! setting as I
think both have potential. It was great gaming with both Brendan and Callum. It has
been far too many years. Nostalgia is a good thing.

Friday, 4 January 2013

Pete, Optimus Prime and I have
gamed together for most of our lives. We tend towards farce, mucking around and disrupting the DM’s plans at every turn. Yet we keep coming back. When someone
runs a pre-written adventure like Optimus Prime's Barony
of the Damned or Pete’s Power Behind
the Throne we take things seriously for the most part.

These adventures worked for us.

But if its one of
our written adventures look out. Perhaps this is due to their one-shot nature. Lately
I’ve been thinking about doing the following to prevent frustration on my part as the DM:

Discourage disruptive PC’s like Halflings.
Halflings are inevitably played as squeaky voiced Mickey Mouse clones. The
voice will eventually drive you mad. One occasion saw the group play Barbarians
as cavemen that don’t play nice with society. Which makes sense but made the city based adventure planned for the night problematic.

Curtail oil. It’s rules effectiveness sees it
used till it becomes a monotonous crutch. I have seen oil flasks ruled as
alchemist fire as opposed to lamp oil. This makes sense given the flammability
and raw damage and I should reduce availability accordingly. It was amusing to
see it used as a tool for assassination though.

Hand wave as much ‘town’ as I can. My problem with the ‘town’ is that one person does their own thing for a bit leaving the others bored. I have been in this position many times. Bored or frustrated players tend to set things, like taverns, on fire. Therefore I hand wave the whole thing “gain d3 hirelings each and buy whatever you like off the equipment list within reason.” To me the adventure happens at the adventure site, be it a ruin or dungeon, and not in the village.

Hirelings are a finite resource. Players become frustrated at not being allowed to
hire a dozen hirelings post expedition to replace losses. I have come to see the pool of hirelings
as a finite resource but my players don’t see things this way.

Last Friday we gamed.
I wasn’t sure what to run and had been speed-reading Tomb of the Iron God and Dwimmermount.
I settled for something I knew. B2 Keep
on the Borderlands. After swift character creation we began at the ravine’s
entrance with the players facing a series of caves. I decided to pick
things up from where the last group had left off. A Halfling
fighter, Half Orc assassin and a mob of hirelings headed straight to the Temple
of Evil Chaos. There was much burning. The following happened:

Goblins always show up as wandering monsters.

A reaction roll dictated that a wandering group
of goblins was friendly. A roll on the Monster Business chart saw they were
rock painting. They offered to serve as guides in return for a shovel and
’magic’ whistle.

Booted feet caused loud echoes in the temple corridors
and so all footwear was abandoned. The Half Orc and Halfling crept ahead with
the Halfling abandoning his armour, favouring stealth. Before going into combat
the Halfling would have a hireling strap him back into his armour.

A horde of skeletons were delicately roped
together and their weapons deftly stolen. They would only animate if the gem
they guarded was touched or if assaulted. Ultimately they animated and promptly
fell over each other becoming tangled. They were easily dispatched. Had this
been a straight up fight they party would have been butchered.

A horde of zombies was lured into an expansive
field of oil laid out as a trap by the adventurers. Their brainless shambling
approach saw them badly burned and then simply dispatched. Another TPK avoided.

A band of acolytes were interrupted as they
complained about a ‘priest’ who was not sending enough victims their way. The
players found out the usefulness of maces as we again used the AD&D Weapon
verse Armour charts. Pete wasn’t impressed and I am reconsidering it’s use.

Excursion number one was a great success and
the Half Orc assassin levelled up!

A trip to town saw the heroes desperate for
oil. They went door-to-door begging for supplies and offering ludicrous prices. They
also hired a Priest of Thunder and his acolytes.

Further exploration of the Temple of Evil Chaos
saw the group barge in on a second band of acolytes. During the melee the
Priest of Thunder betrayed them. All the hirelings, including the goblin
guides, were slain. The high priests efforts to cast powerful spells like hold
person were disrupted by lucky blows before the spells could be completed. The
dice were running hot for the players.

Powerful chaotic artefacts were cautiously
liberated, being lassoed onto a cloak before being bundled up. They would later inflict their curse when touched while being cleaned. The curse was seen as a frustration to the players
and honestly was better resolved quickly and painlessly with a shabbily
role-played trip to the priest back in town. There they blatantly hinted that they were cursed till the priest cast a remove curse spell.

A second horde of zombies was lured into a
field of burning oil and suffered greatly for their brainlessness. The arrival
of the Temple’s High Priest saw the Halfling fail his save verse spells and
become paralysed. The Half Orc grabbed him and legged it, lighting several
flasks of oil behind him to cover his retreat.

Excursion two was a great success, despite all
the hirelings being butchered, as the traitorous Priest of Thunder was loaded
with magic gear. Everyone levelled! No one would hire on with them nor was
there additional oil for sale.

With no one in the tavern willing to join them
the players looked to recruit from the monstrous populace for their next
assault on the Temple. A wandering monster roll determined a band of goblins
setting snares in the woods; the reaction roll said they weren’t immediately
hostile. The Half Orc’s appearance helped and soon they were directed to the orc caves. Some solid role-playing saw the recruitment of 10
orc warriors and an ogre mercenary.

The Temple High Priest was caught by surprise
as he organised an ambush. The ogre cut him down and his zombies were dispatched.
While prior hirelings had not been used as fodder the orcs certainly were.

The main temple was discovered. The Halfling
failed a save and was hypnotised by some pretty temple lights. A horde of
skeletons descended upon the group. It was a dramatic and close fight but once
more the dice favoured the hero’s. A bloody ogre was their only ally left
standing.

With the battle over the assassin put a war hammer
into the ogre’s eye. The assassin had had a few attempts to assassinate creatures and
on every occasion he had failed his % chance of success roll. This attempt was no different. He
did automatically hit on each attempt and, thanks to another lucky roll, the damage inflicted was just enough
to kill the ogre outright. The
two heroes’ then looted the temple and the ogre’s lair.

Excursion three was a great success and
everyone levelled again! The treasure in the temple is insanely high and the
pair now has impressive magic armour, shields and weapons. As both characters
are now level 4 I suspect the Caves of Chaos may not be as much of a challenge
going forward.

Ogre 'ally' prior to war hammer to face incident.

It was 3 am when we finished gaming. Once again
the Caves of Chaos produced the goods. It thoroughly deserves its status as a
classic. There is just so much you can do with the module.